Breeding Kribensis

[Shuggie]

Hello All,
A few weeks ago i went to my lfs and bought 4 juvenile kribs. Two of the kribs have now paired off and killed one of the other ones. So I have 3 kribs left now, and as i said, 2 have paired off. I dont have any rocks in my tank however i do have some pieces of bogwood and lots of plants, the tank looks really nice. The water parameters in my tank are ph 6.8, kh 2, gh 3-4, ammonia 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm.
The problem im having is that the kribs havent laid eggs yet! The male and female that have paired off have been doing the shaking about in front of each other, do you think that the problem may be that they dont have a suitable breeding site? last night i raised the temp a couple of degrees and done a small water change. Hopefully this will spur them into action. Other fish i have in the tank are 10 neons and 5 white cloud mounitain minnows, so they are obviously not scared of them! I dont really want to put a terracotta plantpot in the tank as i think it would make my tank look unnatural. Any ideas on how to get them started, do you think i just need to wait longer as the kribs have never breed before?
Additionally, with the water parameters above do you think that the water would be suitable for some more adventurous species of dwarf cichlids such as caucatoides or borelli's or perhaps some agazzisi's??? ive had these fish in the past with not much success in a different tank, however, i think i located the problem. evaporation! I had a 4 ft tank with a wooden hood, however, there was a large space between the surface of the water and the hood, i had no condensation cover. I used to lose as much as 2 inches of water a week, i used to then just top up the water with fresh tap water - this was obviously increasing my waters hardness. I now have a condensation cover and seem to have my gh kh and ph under control and it seems to be holding at the previously stated levels.
Any feedback greatly appreciated.

Shuggie.
p.s. Ill try to get some pics of my tank online soon.........and hopefully a diary of my kribs when they start breeding, ive already posted this on the african cichlid section and didnt get much of a reply so dont get your knickers in a twist about being in the wrong section!

 

[chrismr]

Firstly, patience is a virtue. They have only spent a few weeks in their new home, and when they are still juveniles, as you say. how large are they?

It is possible that the fish simply are not ready, or you have not provided a suitable structure for them to spawn in. They prefer cave-like structures, and if you don't have any they may not (but might) spawn. So you might have to bite the bullet on the clay pot if you don't have caves.

I would reccommend taking the third one back to the LFS as it may suffer the same fate as the last one.

How large is your tank? There are not that many other cichlids (if any) I would reccommend putting in with them, and most definitely do not get more adventurous by sticking something like an apistogramma in. They will not get along.

 

[Shuggie]

well thanks for the reply,
I probably was jumping the gun a little with regards to the breeding guess ill just have to bide my time.
I didnt actually mean put apistos in with the kribs, i meant that hypothetically if i didnt have the kribs then would the apistos mentioned previously be ok with the water parameters previously stated?


Shuggie.

 

[chrismr]

Apisto cacatuoides would do fine with those perameters, as would a number of apistos.

For the purposes of breeding some of them require water with a much lower ph - you would need to look into specific species requirements.

Cacatuoides are probably one of the better to start with though.

 

[Shuggie]

ok,
thanks again for getting back to me. What do you suggest for lowering PH? I dont really want to start cutting holes in my plumbing to install a R/O system. What about adding some pieces of mopani and removing the carbon from my filter? would the tannins bring the PH down to a suitable level for breeding and if so would these tannins not be removed after a period of time through weekly water changes and then make the ph go back up again? Or how about using peat in one of the baskets of my filter? If i done this i would have to make sure that i had a good bag for storing the media cause ive heard it can clog up your filter. Ideally, i would like to have ph 6, gh 1, kh 1, how am i going to get there?

Shuggie.

 

[chrismr]

I would recommend going with peat. You can get the bags of peat granules which you can place in your filter or in the tank.

Where in the world are you located? I am in the UK and sometimes it can be a struggle to find the peat granules (it is currently in any case) but if you phone around a lot you will find, as I did.

 

[shrimply]

wow, I have never heard of anyone having trouble getting kribs to breed they just do it and don't stop. Mine have just had their second lot and since I don't want the babies I have just left the babies and parents to thier own devices hoping that they would just get eaten or die of eventually. They don't have any food or anything but the things are still alive and growing.

 

[Shuggie]

I live in Glasgow,
I think it shouldnt be a problem getting the peat as ive bought it from my lfs previously, however, that was when i had a 4ft tank and it didnt seem to make any difference, i think this was probably due to the fact that my water was relatively harder than it is now ( solved with the condensation covers!) so when i added the peat i dont think i reached the breaking point of the kh to allow the ph to go down. Maybe i should give it another go.
The 4ft tank i had split at one of the corners and the water was pouring out, it was seeping through the floor and into my living room beneath! So ive just got my little 2ft tank back up and running and quite enjoying it.

Shuggie.